Tuesday, October 27, 2009

TWD - Cherry Fudge Brownie Torte

You can easily guess what this dessert cake is all about from its title; however, I will confirm that it consists of a rich, dense, chocolatey (>300g worth!) base dotted with dried cherries soaked in cherry booze and made sticky with (in my case) raspberry jam, then topped with a contrasting mousse of marscapone, cream cheese and cream. Oh, and in case you can't work it out (according to this article, the Australian public needs to be told such things), it is highly calorific.

This torte tastes as devine as only that many calories can; however, you really only need a tiny slice of this to be satisfied, so when you spread the calories over the number of pieces of cake (I sliced at least 20 slices), it is not going to hurt once in a while as your treat of the day. And it does taste good - I could easily settle for the brownie layer less the cherry concoction and the mousse. It's not up there with my favourite desserts, but it is good.

You are supposed to flame your plumped up dried cherries with kirsch. I didn't have kirsch, but I have been harbouring a bottle of Danish Kirsberry for about two years after I decided I needed it during a raid on Dan Murphy's bottleshop in Prahran. (Yep, it's a well travelled bottle of Kirsberry - from Denmark to Melbourne to Brisbane.)

I also had a hard time finding the dried cherries. I remember that not so long ago I could buy them in the supermarket in Melbourne. Whether it's the change in geography which means that dried cherries just don't sell, or whether you never could buy them in Brisbane supermarkets, I could not find dried cherries in any of the 4 supermarkets that I canvassed. They weren't at the Powerhouse farmers market or New Farm Deli either (well, not without a chocolate coating). I found the Rolls Royce American version at Black Pearl for $17 per 200g (ouch!), before striking gold at The Nut Market at James Street Markets (at $5.95 per 100g, still not cheap, but affordable).

Here is the cherry-chocolate brownie base, which is definitely sturdy:

Mine puffed up and cracked slightly on top during baking, but settled down on cooling.

If that is not decadent enough, you top the base with a marscapone based mousse:

Marscapone is sold in supermarkets in 250g tubs, so I scaled down the mousse recipe in proportion to 1 tub of marscapone, and this provided a nice, thick topping.

If you would like to check out how the other TWD bakers went with this torte check out the Tuesdays with Dorie blogroll. For the recipe, check out Dorie's book or refer to April's blog (when it is Tuesday in the Northern Hemisphere).